Christmases on Bones
by 206
Summary: Maps out Brennan's emotional evolution towards Christmas from every season of Bones. Includes speculation on season 7.
1. Season 1

**Christmases on Bones - I was inspired after watching "The Man in the Fallout Shelter". Obviously there are spoilers for all the seasons. I hope I managed to avoid season 7 spoilers but I am not 100% sure. Nothing big if there is anything there but you are warned. Thanks to Bones35 for helping with present ideas. I hope you enjoy and let me know what you think!**

She hated Christmas. She had hated Christmas for years, ever since her parents disappeared. Ever since her brother tried to have Christmas without them. It wasn't right, as good as his intentions were, he shouldn't have tried to make Christmas for them when their parents weren't there. Christmas did not evoke feelings of merriment or spirituality. Instead it made her angry, it augmented her feelings of loneliness, her bitterness towards her parents and brother for leaving her.

And so she takes it out on everyone else, her friends who were trying to enjoy the holiday. People who loved and were loved. She wants that, not that she would ever admit it. No, Dr. Temperance Brennan could never admit to wanting a family, wanting to be fifteen again and rushing down the stairs to open presents with her brother while her parents watched with steaming cups of coffee.

Hodgins called her a Grinch. She put up her usual defense, "I don't know what that means" when in fact she knows perfectly well. She remembers her father reading that story to her as a child. Another thing she will never admit. She doesn't want to be the bad guy, but she can't help it. Christmas for all intents and purposes was, stupid. There was no logic to it and therefore she would not allow herself to take part in any of the festivities or traditions.

People, Angela in particular, tried over the years to get her to open up and participate in the holiday. She always refused. She would run away to some dig in some third world country in order to avoid the whole thing. But this year Dr. Goodman didn't grant her leave. And she was quarantined in the lab with her friends and colleagues.

Booth is so enthusiastic about the holiday. As illogical as it is, it is as if there is a part of him that is still a little boy who can't wait for Christmas morning. But he is stuck here too, without his son, bearing the brunt of her brute affront on the holiday. He takes it. He helps with the case as much as he and gives her offerings of peace, nuggets of what he considers valuable insight on Christmas.

And so she starts to wonder, would it really be so bad? Celebrating Christmas, it has been almost fifteen years after all since her parents disappeared. She stays in her place on the steps as everyone rushes out to be with their family and friends. But Booth stops in his tracks and looks back at her. He seems so unsure if he should go or stay. "Go, go be with your little boy on Christmas. Say Merry Christmas for me" she says. And she feels slightly less alone. Because he cared enough to stop and make sure she would be alright for Christmas. So she takes him up on his offer and meets him at Wong Foo's after giving Ivy a special Christmas gift. He is smiling, and he seems to just know what happened. There is a spark of happiness that ignites within her as she sits with him, drinking eggnog. A spark that gets fanned into a flame when a small boy rushes in to see his, "DADDY!"

Booth gives her a goodbye smile and tells his little boy to say Merry Christmas. She can't help but smile and wave back. She watches them leave and the little boy looks back, just as his father had done just a few hours previously. This boy she knows only from watching him interact with his father through lab doors and a "Merry Christmas."

She is not sure if it really is Booth and his son who compels her to pick up the presents her parents left her all those years ago. She doesn't even know why she kept them in the first place. But she picks them up from the back of her closet in her apartment and arrives at the Jeffersonian as the clocks strike midnight and it is officially the day after Christmas day. She sits on the couch in Angela's office, because that is where she told Angela (and Booth because she knows he was listening at the door) the story of those presents. She finally feels brave enough to actually open them. Because she doesn't feel as alone as she has since the day her parents abandoned her.


	2. Season 2

Russ was back in her life for a couple months. It felt pretty great. She couldn't help but say "my brother" as often as possible; she even turned down a dig in order to spend time with him. But he left, again, along with her father, again.

So she is back to being bitter about Christmas. What is the point? There is none. She searches vehemently for a good dig to go on in order to avoid the holiday. She doesn't want to have Angela pester her about getting into the holiday spirit and she knows that Booth will be extremely stubborn in his attempts to get her to do something festive.

"Bones! What are you doing for Christmas?" He asked her enthusiastically just the week before. She told him she was leaving for a dig in three days. He looks slightly dejected, she can determine this because for some reason he is the only person she is able to read at all. He corrals her into coming to see the special Christmas lights near the Washington Monument with him and his son. She tells him that she only agreed in order to stop him from bothering her before she leaves. In actuality she felt a little thrill in being asked to do something with him for Christmas.

The little boy whom she has only met on a few occasions since the previous Christmas is so excited to be with his father to see the lights that she can't help but get excited too. She tries not to let it show, she wants to keep up her façade of logical determinism against the holiday, but she knows from Booth's smile that he can see through it. On any other occasion she would be worried that he able to see through her wall, but she decides, in the spirit of the holiday that she won't worry about it.

She leaves for the dig a couple day s later, but while she works tirelessly during the day in the hot sun, she falls asleep thinking of the special Christmas lights near the Washington Monument and Booth with Parker wearing identical grins.


	3. Season 3

Her father and brother are in jail for Christmas this year. She almost wants to laugh at the absurdity of her father's wish to spend Christmas as a real family again. Booth of course, who has now become her best friend alongside Angela, takes her scathing and incisive comment and turns it into a great Christmas idea.

Just a couple years ago she never would have even contemplated the idea. She would have scoffed, demeaned him and jumped on the first plane to Guatemala. But she is not as angry and bitter as she was then. And, most likely due to Booth's influence and incessant talk about the importance of family, she feels less scared of trying Christmas with her family.

And so she jumps right into the idea with vigor, determined to make it happen. She repeatedly says she won't be there, but a small part of her, a small part of her _logical_ side tells her that she will be there. She does everything she needs to, jumps through all sorts of hoops and kisses Booth under the mistletoe in order to make Christmas happen for her family.

She stands for a moment outside the jail, hesitant to go in. Old fears and new taking over her, her ticket is still tucked away in her bag, like a safety blanket. Its presence allows her to go through the doors. When the security guard opens the door and lets her into the conjugal trailer and she sees how happy her father and brother are she knows that she made the right decision. Not only for them, but for herself as well.

She sits with her father, watching her brother play with her nieces and for a moment wonders what it would be like if Booth and Parker were there as well. She feels sad that Booth is without his son for Christmas when it means so much to him and wonders if maybe she should stop by on her way home. He helped her get a special Christmas with her family; she wants to do something to repay him.

Her cell phone ringing interrupts her thoughts and conversation with her father. It is Booth, claiming a Christmas miracle, because he gets to spend time with Parker. She can hear the happiness in his voice and it warms her heart. Something that he has been doing more and more often, especially since that first Christmas. He tells her to open the blinds. She does and is shocked to see him and Parker standing outside in the snow; a beautifully decorated Christmas tree twinkling beside them. It is only years of practiced stoicism that allows her to keep her composure at the sight.

"I love my gift Booth" is the only thing she is able to get around the lump in her throat. There is so much more she wants to, and should say but she can't. She can't express what it means to her. And as she stands there with her family looking out to Booth and Parker she feels she is starting to understand his concept of 'more than one kind of family.'

She leaves for Guatemala on the 26th, but stops by Booth's the evening of the 25th. She goes with a planned speech in her head to thank him for the Christmas tree. Instead, when he opens the door she hugs him. She figures that with his understanding of human body language and minutia he will know what she is trying to say. Another tree is blinking in the corner of his apartment next to his TV; there are ornaments that were clearly made by a child that he has hung lovingly in the most visible spots. It makes her feel warm inside again, so she stays for her proffered beer.


	4. Season 4

One of the first thoughts following the release of her father from jail was that she would be able to spend Christmas with him and Russ again, forever. No more Christmases alone. There is only her mother missing but she is not alone.

Unforeseen circumstances change her giddiness for the holiday. Losing Zack, almost losing Booth, it was too much for her. She was unable to process it logically. Therefore she retreated further into her logical world than she had been in a long time.

Booth tried desperately to break down the walls he had already broken down years before, along with all the new ones that she put up. But she was too afraid. She couldn't open herself up. She couldn't decide that letting him past just one wall was an acceptable risk.

So when Christmas did roll around that year. She took the first opportunity offered to go on a dig. She was able to recognize the disappointment in Booth's face when she told him. This year he wasn't going to have Parker for Christmas. He had agreed to let Rebecca take him to her parents in order to get more days at New Years. He had been counting on spending time with her. If she were honest with herself, which she definitely wasn't, she had been counting on spending time with him as well.

She was disappointed when her father didn't extend a Christmas invitation. She couldn't understand why he wouldn't now that he was out of jail, and it only increased her resolve to be away for Christmas. Russ', "well if you want, I guess you could come here" was equally disappointing.

For the first time since being quarantined in the lab, she wanted to be alone for Christmas. She wanted time to think, she wanted to be away from the festivities, away from emotions and anything illogical. So once the Jeffersonian exchange of gifts was over and she hugged her friends goodbye, she boarded a plane and spent the next week knee deep in remains.

When she returned home, she noticed that Booth had been by to water her plants and bring in her mail. She knew it was Booth and not Angela because he left the water can in the sink instead of putting it away, the mail was haphazard and there was small present resting on bookshelf which had once housed the medieval coup de grace dagger her father had used to kill Deputy Director Kirby.

She was too afraid to open it. Too afraid of the social contact that she might unwittingly enter by the simple act of opening the present. So she took it and placed it in the back of her closet, replacing the presents that she had taken from there four years previously.


	5. Season 5

Her father surprised her. He wanted to spend Christmas with her. Because spending Christmas alone apparently "means no one loves you." She had been extremely tempted to remind him of all the Christmases she was forced to spend alone as a courtesy of his abandoning her but managed to hold her tongue. A skill Booth had been adamant she learn. And once she had grudgingly accepted may be useful in social situations.

Still she had not been convinced that she wanted to spend Christmas with her father and Margaret. She kept her ticket to El Salvador on hold just in case.

Once again it was Booth who convinced her that the right thing to do would be to have Christmas with her father and cousin and to go ahead with her initial plans of having a Christmas dinner with all their friends. Her ticket to El Salvador was never purchased.

It was her first time hosting a party for a specific holiday. Anthropologists do not normally celebrate holidays because they understand the cultural…usually stupidity behind it. But this year she was determined to have a successful Christmas dinner. She wanted to. She asked Booth for specific instructions on what to do and he helped her decorate the tree and her apartment and choose what to make. Her father and Margaret came over early as well to help prepare the food.

She was not used to having so many people in her apartment at the same time. Not used to so many people with smiles on their faces around her. Happy to be there with her, to be there together. She couldn't help but be happy as well. These were all people that she cared about; all people whom she knew cared about her. She felt that now familiar flame inside of her as she clasped hands and allowed Booth his silly prayer tradition. She had a family. It was not conventional by any means, but she had a family. She was unable to keep the smile off her face. She was not alone for Christmas.


	6. Season 6

She was lonely. For the first time in years she truly felt alone again. Everyone had their Christmas plans and she was not a part of them. Booth didn't invite her to go see the lights and spend time with him and Parker. It was the hardest Christmas for her since she had begun her partnership with Booth. She did not even want to run to Guatemala or El Salvador. It was running away that had gotten her into her current position in the first place.

She ended up at Russ'; he and Amy were hosting Christmas and actually invited her this time. The girls were excited to see their Aunt Temperance. She wanted to ask Booth what appropriate gifts would be, but was unable to bring herself to open a conversation on the topic of Christmas. She didn't ask if he had Parker this year. She refused to think about him and Hannah spending all day together in bed as Sweets and Daisy had wanted to do the previous year.

She sat at the table with Russ and his family. She tried to engage her nieces in conversation; she was able to convince them to let her read to them…which went much more smoothly.

But she returned home to an empty apartment, devoid of any Christmas decorations and couldn't help but contemplate that just a year before she and Booth had been incredibly close, that her Jeffersonian family and biological family had filled her apartment. It had been a happy time, now it was not. As much as she hated speculation, she couldn't help think about what her Christmas would have been like if she had not turned Booth down on the steps of the Hoover. If she had said yes, if she had not been so afraid.

She knew the answer however. There was little speculation involved. From what she knew about Booth she could use the facts to create a decently accurate picture. A Christmas tree in the same corner near the TV, the decorations Parker made as a small child still taking the most prominent places. He would have a Charlie Brown Christmas playing on the TV, on mute in order to play his favorite Christmas songs. They would go see the lights at the Washington Monument, then come back and have a nice meal and open presents. If Parker was there, he and Booth would do some father-son traditional activity of theirs while she perhaps would clean up and then observe them. She would offer to read Parker a story, and Booth's childish side would want to sit and hear it too.

That was the Christmas she wanted. The one she craved. The one she knew she could have had but threw away.

There were two presents on her desk when she went into work the next morning. One from Booth, the other from Parker. The only relief was that Hannah's name was no where on the gifts. She took the presents home with her that night and put them in the back of the closet, next to the one Booth had given her a few years earlier that she had never opened.


	7. Season 7

**Reminder: Speculation for season 7 but should be spoiler free.**

Although pregnancy had been wrecking havoc with her emotions, she was excited for Christmas. She was excited to be spending Christmas, officially as a part of Booth's family. She was pregnant with his child, due in just a couple weeks.

She and Booth had just recently moved into their joint owned home. Something that made her happier than she wanted to admit. There were still boxes that needed to be unpacked but Booth had insisted on doing it later, there was still a few weeks before the baby was due and Christmas was too important to ignore for boxes. She smiled at him and allowed him to proceed how he wanted without any lectures on the anthropological meanings or historical contexts of Christmas.

They had Parker for Christmas. He was running around putting up as many decorations as possible. Even putting a bit of tinsel in the soon to be nursery. They had all decorated the tree together, it was bigger than any one that Booth had had in his apartment and his exuberance matched Parker's, she fed off their excitement and became equally engrossed in the task. She noticed that Booth still placed his favorite ornaments that Parker had made him in prominent spots and it made her smile. It was the type of man, the type of father he was.

She allowed Parker to help her prepare the meal while Booth set the table. They had thought about hosting a big dinner as she had done a few years previously but had decided they wanted a small family Christmas instead.

She watched from the window as Booth and Parker made a snowman, before they convinced her to come outside and they helped her make a "beautiful pregnant snow angel." They all shared hot chocolate afterward while watching classical movies.

It was time for presents after; she was unable to decide who was more excited, Booth or Parker. Booth had three special gifts for her later that night once they were alone together. She had not forgotten about the presents from him (and Parker) that she had never opened over the years. She had been careful to not let him see them while packing but apparently she was not as stealthy as she believed herself to be. He had found them, and placed them nicely on their bed, waiting for her. She stood frozen in the doorway, unsure of what to do.

"They are for you." Booth whispered in her ear as he walked up behind her and wrapped his arms around her. She felt so safe, illogically so, in his arms. She nodded her head in acknowledgement that she knew. "You never opened them." Again she merely nodded. Booth withdrew his arms and walked into the room. He picked up the presents off the bed and placed then in a small box that be placed on the shelf in the closet.

"Maybe next year."

She woke in the middle of the night, not a new occurrence; she often had to since the baby was pressing on her bladder. As she walked back into the bedroom, her eye caught the box of her presents sitting on the shelf. As quietly as she could, she moved to the closet and picked up the box. Sitting down on the bed again she held the box as close as she could. The presents that rested inside were reminders of times, of Christmases when she had been alone. Carefully she opened the box and took out the first present, the one from their forth year as partners.

It was a ceramic replica of Ripley. He had gone back to the ceramics studio that they had been forced to go to with Sweets and his then girlfriend April and had made it for her since she had been so devastated by the poor animal's death.

She blamed the tears in her eyes on her pregnancy hormones, but knew that the feeling of her heart swelling metaphorically in her chest was caused by Booth's thoughtful present. She had used to subscribe to the idea that gifts were merely ways of claiming dominance over someone, it was not until Booth's gifts - which did not always come at Christmas- did she realize that it was the thought and care that went into the gift that made it special. The value was not monetary, it was sentimental.

She picked up the next present, Parker's, and knew that it would be very valuable to her sentimentally as Parker was not in a position to be able to buy her something expensive. She stopped mid-unwrapping as she heard Booth move in his sleep, she glanced behind her to make sure he was asleep before continuing. She couldn't stop the sniffle at the sight of his handmade patella tree ornament with "Merry Christmas Bones" written shakily atop it in red and green paint.

She didn't realize that she had sobbed aloud at their beautifully kind presents until she felt Booth wrap his arms around her. "It's okay baby." He whispered into her ear. She didn't have it in her at the moment to chastise him on his use of the term baby. "Why did you want to open them alone?" He asked as she continued to sniffle quietly. "I opened the last ones alone." She replied. Although she was facing away from him, she knew that he wore a confused expression. "The presents that my parents left me when they disappeared." She clarified, "I was alone when I finally opened them." He didn't ask her when she had opened them.

"You're not alone now." He said, his voice strong and clear. "I know." And she did. She knew that now she was no longer alone. That she would be able to allow herself to be happy with this man and be a part of his family, a family that they were creating together, and not just on Christmas but all the time. He nuzzled his face in her hair, "are you going to open the last one?"

The last one left was from the previous year. While he had been with Hannah. It was the one she was most hesitant to open. She was afraid that it would be something generic, one of those "need a quick gift idea" presents like a scarf or paperweight. She took a breath to calm herself and nodded. Gently she took the square present out of the box and began to open it methodically, carefully peeling away each piece of tape. Booth restrained himself from commenting that she could just rip the paper right off, but he knew that there were things going on inside her head that he was not privy to at the moment, and while he had an idea, he was not about to do anything to make her feel insecure. So he waited.

It was a framed photograph of the constellation Delphinus.

Along the frame were Japanese Kanji symbols for friendship, forgiveness, honesty and appreciation.

She was unable to stop the tears from escaping her eyes. Even though they had been just barely partners at the time, even after everything that had happened between them from the moment she turned him down to him proposing to Hannah, he had still cared for her. The photograph was proof to her. Proof that he had still thought about her, still cared about her, still knew her, despite her having broken his heart and despite his being with another woman.

"I love you." She blurted out, blinking back the rest of the tears before they could make a run for it. "Thank you." Booth turned her in his arms so that she was facing him and kissed her soundly. They wouldn't talk about it now, there were no words needed at the moment. He gave her three important ones anyway, "I love you" because he knew just how much she needed to hear it at that moment.

It took years, it took many different events and emotions, but Dr. Temperance Brennan was ready to concede that good did come out of Christmas. It did not have to be about the birth of a mythical child. For her that was not what was important about Christmas. It was about giving people reminders of just how much you love them, about spending time with people that you love and who love you. She was already looking forward to the next Christmas, the first that they would be able to share with their baby. She let herself indulge in a fantasy of what next year's Christmas would look like and crawled back into bed with Booth with a large smile on her face.


End file.
